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Thursday, January 19, 2017

On birthdays and life....

I don't know if I've ever really gone into Alex's story before....

My divorce from Ex1 had been final for several months when I met Alex's father. We were introduced by a mutual friend at a bar one night - I was being hit on by a really skanky guy (oh my hell was he skanky) and a friend of mine was the bartender. She came out from around the bar, grabbed me, shoved me into this group of guys and said "this is my friend - take care of her" and then went back to her post. As it turned out, one of the guys in this group was her cousin.

Long story short, we started dating. One thing led to another, and boom - I was pregnant.

As soon as I told him the news, he "needed space".

I was at work one night when I started having sharp pains in the left side of my abdomen. I tried to ignore them, but they got more and more intense as the night progressed. When my relief showed up at midnight, I split and drove myself to the hospital as fast as I could. I was only about 7 weeks along, so I hadn't actually seen my OB/GYN yet, but I knew something was wrong. I got to the ER, went through the preliminary BS, and could tell from the looks of the nurses' faces that it was bad. So I called him.

He showed up. But that was about it. I was in a panic, knowing that I was going to lose the baby. After hours of testing, the ER doctor informed me that I had a sub-chorionic hemorrhage and I was more than likely going to lose the baby. I never felt so alone in my life, even though my baby's father was in the room with me.

I was eventually sent home and told to schedule a follow up with my OB/GYN. As I sat in his office and he told me that I had less than a 50% chance of carrying this baby to term, I freaked. I knew that realistically, my life was a mess. I was a newly single mother with 3 very young kids, and the last thing that I needed was another one, but suddenly I knew that no matter what, I wanted this baby to make it. I didn't look to this baby as a way to get his/her father back into my life, but I looked to it as another reason for me to live.

I was in such a deep, dark hole at the time that I didn't know where to turn. I knew that if something happened to me, my 3 kids could go and live with their father and everything would be fine. But this baby - this little being who only had me to count on - I knew that he/she only had me. And that thought kept me going. This baby gave me a reason to be strong and to do what needed to be done.

When I found out just a few weeks later that this baby was going to have a sibling who would only be a few weeks younger than he was - I didn't have a very kind reaction. In fact, I was downright hateful, nasty, and mean. Realistically, those reactions did nothing to benefit me. I knew that I was going to be raising this baby on my own - and finding out that there was another woman pregnant by the same man at the same time did nothing but cement the fact that I was truly on my own at this point.

At one point during the pregnancy, Ex1 actually took me to court to try to gain full custody of the older 3 kids. He used the reasoning that my previous pregnancies had been so hard on me (they hadn't) that an unplanned one would just be too much stress and the kids would be better off with him than they were with me. Luckily, I made it through that ordeal with no changes to our custody arrangement - and it gave me more motivation to power through all of it and show just how strong I could actually be.

Alex decided to make his appearance almost 3 weeks earlier than he should have. I wasn't prepared for his arrival - even though I was already at the hospital with a sick kid when I went into labor. But his birth showed me that no matter what, something wonderful and beautiful will always come out of the storm.

He's been challenging. He's been difficult. He's had more health issues than the other 4 kids combined. But he's the most loving, most compassionate, most loving little being on this earth - and his hugs are enough to make the worst days seem just a little bit brighter. He's had to put up with me 24/7 but at the same time he's shown me that no matter what, he still loves me - and occasionally he even likes to hang out with me. And those moments are my favorites.